Yosemite in nineteenth-century prints

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 1997 by Kate Nearpass Ogden

15 These six prints, collectively entitled Prang's Gems of American Scenery. No. 1. Six Views in the Yosemite Valley, bear copyright nos. 1933-1938. They are numbered one through six under the following titles: Yosemite Valley, El Capitan, Cathedral Spires, Three Brothers, Sentinel Rock, and Bridal Veil Falls. The series included at least six additional unnumbered chromolithographs not included in the 1872 copyright: Mirror Lake and Mount Watkins, Hutching's Hotel, Yosemite Falls, Nevada Fall, South Dome and Washington's Column, and Vernal Fall. Copies of the latter are in the Boston Public Library.

16 Catalogue of Louis Prang's Collection Sold by Public Auction, Oil and Water-color Paintings (Copley Hall, Boston, 1899), Lot 1480. The Denver Public Library in Denver, Colorado, has a set of Wilkie chromolithographs with labels staling that they were hosed on a series of seventeen-by-twenty-six-inch paintings by Thomas Hill. The labels also say the prints were sold by subscription for twenty-five dollars a set.

17 There were fourteen of these, copyrighted by Prang on September 12, 1873 (Library of Congress copyright nos. 10527-10540), under the collective title Prang's American Chromos. California Views. Some versions have the dates 1874 and 1875, suggesting later copyrights. The Yosemite prints in the group are numbered ten through fourteen: Yosemite Valley, Looking East from the Mariposa (copyrighted 1873 and 1874); Yosemite Valley, Looking West (copyrighted 1873 and 1875); The Domes of the Yosemite (copyrighted 1873 and 1874); Bridal Veil Fall, Yosemite Valley, (copyrighted 1873 and 1874); and Nevada Fall, Yosemite Valley (copyrighted 1873 and 1875).

18 At the Williams and Everett gallery (October 1871) and the Elliott, Blakeslee and Noyes gallery (January 1872), respectively. These exhibitions are noted in Alfred Harrison, "Facts on John Ross Key" (typescript in the artist's file in the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.).

19 The prints also have in another corner "L. Prong & Co." and the copyright date, variously 1873, 1874, 1875, and 1876.

20 Champney's chromolithograph, measuring approximately sixteen by twenty-four inches, was published by Dodge Collier and Perkins in 1872. It shows North Dome, Half Dome, and Mount Watkins from the valley floor with an encampment of American Indians in the foreground. Melrose entered copyright no. 21498 on August 22, 1887, for Yosemite Valley, California (from the Mariposa Trail). Published in the same year by Raphael Tuck and Sons of New York City, it depicts the view from Inspiration Point. Yosemite Waterfalls, Cal., by an unknown artist, was published by Kurz and Allison of Chicago, between 1870 and 1890. One of the largest of the Yosemite prints (23 by 16 15/16 inches), it includes depictions of several Indians in full-feathered regalia (see the frontispiece).

21 Moran's Yosemite engravings, based on photographs by Thomas C. Roche, appear in Isaac H. Bromley, "The Big Trees and the Yosemite," Scribner's Monthly, vol. 3, no. 3 (January 1872), pp. 261-277; The Pacific Tourist. Williams' Illustrated Trans-Continental Guide of Travel, front the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, ed. Henry T. Williams (New York, 1876); and Agnes Crane, "Staging to the Yosemite," Leisure Hour (August 1883), pp. 475-481. Fenn's illustrations appear in "Yosemite," Appleton's Journal, vol. 5, no. 111 (May 13, 1871), pp. 555-558; and Picturesque California and The Region West of the Rocky Mountains, from Alaska to Mexico, ed. John Muir (San Francisco and New York, 1888). Parsons's illustrations, based on photographs by Charles L. Weed, appear in J. L. Wisely, "The Yosemite Valley," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 32, no. 192 (May 1866), pp. 697-708. Colman's On the Illillouett[e] - North Fork Yosemite, appears in The Ladies' Repository, vol. 3, [new ser. vol. 7] (June 1871), following p. 398. Illilouette Canyon is actually on the south side of the valley.